Sooooooo....turns out Bolivian hostels rarely have computers meaning we have to venture out to find internet, and those internet cafes decide to disable the USB ports on their computers, hence the reason for lack of blogging, but here we finally are about to re-emter Rio with all of 13 days left in South America.....boo hoo. But anyway.............
Getting up nice and early we jumped on the bus and arrived at the starting point of our trek, kilometre 82, doing final preparations and posing for a few photos. The porters had all of everyone`s things laid out on the floor and were sharing the weight all out between them. In our group of 16 there were only two fools who opted to carry everything themselves, me of course being one of those fools! Jen and her mates all took the option of the porter so were travelling relatively lightly with just a small day pack, whereas I had my big 65 litre pack. Oh well, at least it wasn`t the 20-25 kg the porters were carrying each!
And here was the group shot where we all posed at the start of the offical Inka trail, for some reason there are only 15 here though, not sure who was missing seeing as we did this 3rd June.....stupid Bolivian computers!
Crossing the bridge to the immediate uphill, it was nice to take in our first beautiful view, the Sacred River which runs through the Sacred Valley (seems they like sacred stuff).
Getting into our stride it took all of about an hour for Jane`s trekking boots to not just fall apart a little, but the whole sole of each boot came clean off. Luckily Jane had cunningly brought along some duct tape with her so did some mountain side DIY as you do.
After a few more hours of walking we came across a few settlements of indigenous people where we could go to the toilet.....which were only squat holes which doesn`t seem that bad, but after a few hours of walking, your legs still aren`t in trekking mode yet and squatting after a few hours trekking is harder than it sounds!
However, we would soon get into our stride and with Jane`s boots slowing us down a little, I decided to press on at my own speed. The norm on a trek like this is for the porters to all set off first and power on, as they need to arrive at the campsite and set up the tents and prepare the food etc so of course they had set off way before us. But with me parting from the group at Jack pace, I caught them up and found them resting on a mud bank and casually overtook them to the shock on their faces. I pressed it a little harder and got the agreed rest point a good 15 minutes before the porters and 30 minutes before everyone else so found great amusement in taking this photo as I chilled out by myself and took some water onboard.
With the rest of the group catchng up and taking a break, we set off again this time with me behaving myself and staying with the group. Not too long later we arrived at our highest point of the day to soak in the views of the ruins of the Inca hillfort of Huillca Raccay. However at the time we did not know this so we just thought it was a resting point but took the opportunity for a group photo.
With the rest of the group all looking excited towards the edge of the cliff, we casuaully strolled over to find these ruins which were a pretty dam impressive sight.
After our guide sat us down and told us some info about the ruins, we picked ourselves back up and set off down the valley and reached our first camping sight which was a village named Wayllabamba which is at 3,000 metres. The name in Quechua means 'grassy plain (if you were interested. Upon getting there we were happy to see all the tents pitched and were informed dinner would be shortly. The best news of all though was that there was a dude selling beers there so of course we jumped on that bandwagon.
With another early start the next morning we took it easy and played some cards in Jane and Lindsays tent. With Jane`s boots deteriorating even worse, I attacked them with some good old electrical tape I had and then went back to my tent and grabbed some sleep. half way through the night Jen went to the toilet (which this time was an actual toilet and not a drop one!) and on her way back attempted to get into Jane and Lindsay`s tent by accident. She even unzipped the tent and had her head half way in before realising it wasn`t our tent. Silly Jenna.
After actually sleeping in our actual tent, we all woke up to our guide bringing us hot drinks at 6am, and strangely getting a good nights sleep (apart from the mule making weird sounds which woke everyone up) we posed for a picture with our tent.
With day 1 complete and feeling pretty good about ourselves after 12k up and downhill, we grabbed our breakfast at the food tent and chilled out as the porters did all the hard work and packed up our tents. Looking out onto the fields near where we had camped it was apparent that good old Coca Cola gets everywhere!
Today we would be taking on 11k but the trek would be somewhat more challenging. The first part was a three hour uphill climb. Knowing this, we tried to kill some time by taking some stupid photos. The three girls had all bought walking poles before the tour (well almost the whole group did but me cos I hate walking poles), however these walking poles could accurately be described as brush handles without the brush. Anyway, I took the opportunity to copy Jason Siegel who copied Lord of the Rings and went for the "you shall not pass" moment.
The first 3 hours took us through some pretty spectacular forested areas, with the trees looking like they might come to life at night.
Arriving at the first resting point after three hours (Llulluchapampa, 3,680m we chilled out for a bit and then set off again on another hour and a half climb, uphill of course. however scenes like this llama munching right next to us on the trail took our mind off things.
With Jane`s boots providing many comical moments for the rest of us, we stopped for a feet photo of team LJ (you do many things whilst trekking to pass the time, and one thing was naming ourselves team LJ, the start of our names).
With the rain kicking in a bit, people were putting on their ponchos, and we passed this girl with her space suit on which reminded me of Jane`s shoes so unsympathetically I obviously took a photo to wind Jane up a bit!
Looking down the valley, we could see a group of llamas which was a pretty cool sight.
The valley behind us was pretty cool too and this picture gives you a sense of how steep the climb was.
Finally reaching the top (Abra de Huarmihuañusca or 'Dead Woman's Pass at 4,215 metres) we posed for a team photo
But this wasn`t fun enough for us.....so went for another team photo which at first glimse looks like the three of us pissing about and Jane randomly standing in the middle of us, but we are actually attempting to spell out the height at which we are at. Seems Jane captured her number perfectly!
After catching our breath for 10 minutes and getting increasingly colder, we set back off downhill, not being able to see more than 10 feet infront of us!
Setting off slowly with poor visability and with Jane`s ever worsening shoe situation, I opted to leave the girls once more in the knowledge that the rest of the days trek was all downhill, and proceeded to run the rest of the way for 40 minutes meeting the group at the campsite who had got there 10 minutes before but set off from the highpoint 30 minutes before us. This campsite was named Pacamayo and was at 3,600m.
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